Official Feedback Thread: LWS4 Episode 5: All or Nothing

Comments

only issue with the episode i have so far is that the drop rate for the exquisite serpentite jewel material is ridiculously low, like i have opened over half the chests twice now and haven't seen a single piece let alone the 3 required for each diviners orichalcum imbued inscription. i was wondering if this was intentional.

Map was moderately interesting, but largely vacant of encounters which I found odd. I'm used to exploring the edges of maps from GW1 days and found the sudden teleport while flying back to some other point in the map confusing. Couldn't a strong winds warning or something pop up in advance of that like with the water areas with strong current warnings?
The heart acquisitions weren't particularly challenging.
The story was far too short for the time I waited to see the next episode. I finished everything within 2.5 hrs. I understand the Meta event and final battle required a great deal of work, but I truly wasn't expecting to gobble up that much of your efforts in such a short period.

I did not care for the emotional investment in some npc, the pursuit of some prophesy followed by betrayal of those values in the end. I've repeatedly seen comments on what good story telling it is that has been accomplished here. However, in my experience providing dark, sad, or crushing endings is not work - it's trying to make a positive outcome and uplifting narrative be revealed which is the best writing. I don't think ending on such a dour note is going to be cherished unless you come up with some real rewards for the patience. The worst part is if you reintroduce Aurene it's going to be a de-escalation of the investment so I know you can't bring her back.

@Malavian.4695 said:
Map was moderately interesting, but largely vacant of encounters which I found odd. I'm used to exploring the edges of maps from GW1 days and found the sudden teleport while flying back to some other point in the map confusing. Couldn't a strong winds warning or something pop up in advance of that like with the water areas with strong current warnings?
The heart acquisitions weren't particularly challenging.
The story was far too short for the time I waited to see the next episode. I finished everything within 2.5 hrs. I understand the Meta event and final battle required a great deal of work, but I truly wasn't expecting to gobble up that much of your efforts in such a short period.

I did not care for the emotional investment in some npc, the pursuit of some prophesy followed by betrayal of those values in the end. I've repeatedly seen comments on what good story telling it is that has been accomplished here. However, in my experience providing dark, sad, or crushing endings is not work - it's trying to make a positive outcome and uplifting narrative be revealed which is the best writing. I don't think ending on such a dour note is going to be cherished unless you come up with some real rewards for the patience. The worst part is if you reintroduce Aurene it's going to be a de-escalation of the investment so I know you can't bring her back.

I don't think it would be de-escalating at all. It's just a matter of timing. This death can be the fuel that ignites our desire to finish Kralk off despite the possible consequences, as if we need it anyway given the fact that if left alone he'll devour reality itself via the mists and we may never get a better chance again. Then bringing her back after we make that decision and sort of fulfill that reckless abandon of our actions as Joko sort of put it, Aurene comes back. We don't use her directly in that last fight, but she still shows up to fulfil the role she was born for. People just keep reiterating how it would seemingly null this moment of her death in this instance if she was brought back, but essentially making her entire existence, our bond with her, and half of the events of this expansion and season by having her die leaving us without an answer is far far worse than simply having her resurrect with whatever magic Joko had.. especially given Ogden, the domain of the lost, and the other bits seemingly glaring at us. Plus the way they ended the episode? Black, almost "to be continued" screen with no follow-up dialogue with our comrades? I would personally find the story far less enjoyable essentially resetting our motives and finding some brand new solution to our problems than picking up right where we left off and simply letting prior events finally get more meaning (i.e. Aurene and Joko, Glint and Aurene private talk about ascension). And having Aurene simply join the mists like Glint and accomplish her destiny there would leave me wondering, "okay, so why couldn't Glint just fill this role the entire time? That's dumb.." It just annoys me everytime someone says that this episode and her death are completely invalidated if she comes back to life next episode because it feels like it's just this buzz-phrase everyone is throwing out without actually considering the rest of this season. Primordus and Jormag's being put back to sleep via a mursaat disguised rogue god and an old junky asuran machine kind of invalidated the threat they ever posed when they were introduced but in the end it led Balthazar to the crystal desert and where we are now, so acting like Aurene resurrecting herself would be invalidating a long-arching story and prophecy seems kind of short-sighted. Especially given that it would mirror we witnessed the player character, not even remotely as powerful an elder dragon candidate, doing that exact same thing when they returned from the dead not that long ago from a domain that despite being ravaged of spirits for former rogue god's army when the player character died, is in far more disarray now that it's been ravaged by Kralk. (Assuming that Aurene would even wind up there which she may not given whatever her and Glint talked about in their private meeting and her being a dragon.)

But anyway, sorry. Just think people are underestimating the writers' abilities to make an Aurene resurrection a valid direction and undermining essentially an entire season of build-up and forgetting previously used plot-devices. Would it really benefit the story more to have Aurene be completely and forever dead and us having to find yet another way of dealing with Elder Dragon magic containment and balance? Is finding some magical device, say the staff of the mists and having it explained that it can somehow balance everything knowing that any future elder dragon threat we have we can just take care of with the wave of some magical artifact? Wouldn't that pretty much immediately invalidate any future elder dragon threat in the future? Would it not be better to have Aurene come back to life, finish the Kralk story-line and then move onto something else for a little while now that Aurene has taken up the mantle and we can focus on other plots or see new lands? How long do the writers and players really want to spend on this same Kralk dilemma when the easier solution has already had the foundation laid allowing for closure and a chance for us to move in a new direction?

Also, to end my little tirade, just because Aurene comes back doesn't mean she's going to be our "little pet dragon" as some people have put it and negate the threat of any future enemy we face because we have a powerful elder dragon on our side. Her role isn't to be the Tyria dragon sheriff, it's to balance the magic. Arguably, that just makes her involvement with ending Joko even more telling of the fact that it was necessary for her to gain his magic to lead to her resurrection and fulfillment of the prophecy, because it was what her destiny was driving her to do to get to where she needed to be and not just because she's our little dragon daughter/pet that finishes our battles for us every time we're in trouble.

I may be blinded by rage that my favorite character is now impaled by purple spikes, but you'd have to be even more blind to not see that the benefit to the overall story or the payoff of where the story has been is far more than if she were to just stay dead or become some ghostly mist dragon being like Glint. And again, just a black screen ending to one of the darkest plots in the entire game with the words "I don't know" and we just reach the conclusion that the next logical and least invalidating story direction is going to be to.. what?... find some other "McGuffin" that solves our current problem or we spend another whole season dealing with this same problem with morale completely wiped from our current loss? How would that work from a story perspective? We just write the commander and friends to forget about it and keep on trucking along? If so, so much again for this season, bonding with Aurene, and pretty much everything else since... what season was Aurene's egg introduced again so many years ago? Like, seriously, why would her resurrection be invalidating compared to essentially nullifying that many years worth of story development only to swerve off the kitten rails and go in a completely different direction or have Aurene going to the mists fulfilling some role that apparently she can fill but Glint couldn't do from this mists this entire time?

Another criticism: Just went back to Sun's Refuge, but the instance was unchanged, though as if Aurene was still alive and missing. You should have done something with that instance for those who have finished the latest story episode.

@Blur.3465 said:
Something happened to the Racing Scarf. It is all too shiny and it lost on colors

I believe this is because a lighting issue with the Racing Scarf was fixed in the patch. But I agree, it looks too shiny and all the colors look very washed out now, e.g. even dyeing it Shadow Abyss now will result in a quite frankly rather sad looking gray instead of a nice deep black. Please revert this fix!

ANET I love you, but you guys are killing me! It's starting to look like the Game of Thrones! Every story update I hold my breath to see who survives... already lost my beloved plant Trahearne. Holding my breath for Braham and Canach, BUT if you lay a finger on Logan!!! So help me Dwayna! Darn it ANET! ... why you are so mean... but I still love you...

Big dragon killed the little one. No wonder, it is not clear how it was possible to rely on a different result)
The death of the little dragon did not upset me personally.
I don't care about he, as does the whole Commander company.
We will kill the big dragon sometime anyway, so the development of the story does not really interest me.
Honestly, I generally love WvW in this game much more than all PvE modes. With one exception - the episodes with Scarlett and the destruction of the Lion's Arch, the Tower of Nightmares - it was epic.
New maps and Kralkatolik are very beautiful, respect for the artists.
The episode with the oil (burning) in my opinion contains an error. Even if we follow the short path (lay the river of oil through the fence), then there is not enough oil, or the skill stops working altogether. I am killed half an hour, until just to restart the game. Everything worked the first time.

@Blur.3465 said:
Something happened to the Racing Scarf. It is all too shiny and it lost on colors

I believe this is because a lighting issue with the Racing Scarf was fixed in the patch. But I agree, it looks too shiny and all the colors look very washed out now, e.g. even dyeing it Shadow Abyss now will result in a quite frankly rather sad looking gray instead of a nice deep black. Please revert this fix!

Yea it looks really bad now it's cloth, it shouldn't shine like that and look like metal.
I really hope it gets looked into, as the scarf is a huge part of my character's style; and right now I am really finding it horribly ugly considering how bad the colors are on it, as well as shine >.<

I am glad I read about the ending of the story before starting the episode. Now I can avoid getting depressed and heartbroken by skipping the story and wait until episode 6 to do 5 and 6 together (or skip 5 altogether) - when and if there is less tragic and more heroic (positive/hopeful) ending; where we kill the big bad dragon, save the world, the Commander triumphs, Aurene is restored (somehow) and we can move on to new adventures - such as CANTHA (couldn't resist).

I love the map and the setting and the new items/sigils etc. I really wanted to get out of the desert and snowy regions are my favourite. So, apart from the story arc and its ending, I love the episode

The story was too short and the ending left a sour taste in my mouth. It was dark, depressing, bleak and left me with a strong feeling that we've been cheated. (The story instances themselves were brilliant and the kralk fight was a lot of fun, I just hate the direction the plot has turned in).

And now what? Dumped back into the world with a 3-4 month wait for whatever the big reveal is? Yeah, that doesn't work that well.

Map completion seems to be blocked by both the story and the meta? Why?

Then there's the weapons collections... ugh. I appreciate that you want long term achievements and goals to keep people on the map but with the mats required this just seem grindy as hell. I hope the Exquisite Serpentite Jewels have a high chance to drop off the home instance node a lot (and why are they account bound?) I've got one Jewel so far so haven't been able to craft a single weapon. From the wiki I see you need to perform tasks to unlock the ascended version, that sounds like fun though.

@yohoia.1850 said:
I am glad I read about the ending of the story before starting the episode. Now I can avoid getting depressed and heartbroken by skipping the story and wait until episode 6 to do 5 and 6 together (or skip 5 altogether) - when and if there is less tragic and more heroic (positive/hopeful) ending; where we kill the big bad dragon, save the world, the Commander triumphs, Aurene is restored (somehow) and we can move on to new adventures - such as CANTHA (couldn't resist).

I love the map and the setting and the new items/sigils etc. I really wanted to get out of the desert and snowy regions are my favourite. So, apart from the story arc and its ending, I love the episode

that until the next main character snuff it, Anet should make a votation poo thread and title it "what main character you want us to kill next? vote here". Seriously your order mentor, Belinda, Eir, Trehearne, Blish, Aurene. Zojja hasnt apeared since she was released from her pod wayyyyy back on HoT so she might be dead for all we know, gosh even SNAFF appeared and the one to recieve him was Tai- omg i just remembered that Taimi its supposed to be terminal... there is another main character on death´s door right there﻿, i just answered my own question

I would like to break it to 2 parts. First part being the story part, including instances, and the second being the extras part, map, achievements etc.
First part:

Positives: Story was really good, really insightful and I loved the ending, despite the loss of a really important character. I really think that we can have a lot more things to do now that Aurene is out of the way, even if she manages to come back, we will get even more lore. Instances were really well made, music was amazing and it's always nice hearing Glint giving you tips.
Negatives: Like most people mentioned, story was really sort. I seriously thought that we can have at least half an hour more story, since it took like 3-4 months to get that episode and I must say I am really in that. We didn't even get the classic part of the story, where you run around helping hearts to show the preparation you are going through, in order to face the enemy.

Second part:
Positives: I always loved the Shiverpeaks, so you immediately got me there, amazing scenery, catacombs are just what someone would expect from Dwarves. Really love some achievements, like the skritt ones, where you have to help them get the Light of the Deldrimor, can be really informative in a funny way plus the Branded attacks, are really insightful to give you information on the situation.
Negatives: For me it's really bad that there isn't a Griffon race in the Shiverpeaks, literaly the best place to put a race on it. Felt a bit of lazy made. No imagination on the legendary longbow, Pharus.

In general, I feel that in terms of instances you have put a lot of time on it and we can see it, cause story is amazing in many parts, especially after PoF came out, but when it comes to extra content I feel that it's really lazy made. Sure, 4th episode had an amazing map with really nice achievements, 5th episode has a very nice map too, but I really don't feel that it was properly made. Seriously, stop being lazy at some points, it is really clear to see and stop promoting the Beetle, where it doesn't belong. It's place is on the Crystal Desert, not in Shiverpeaks. Mountains are Springer and Griffon territories, we should use them both on the map completion and on achievements. Really love this game, but after PoF came out, it seems as you are struggling with a lot of things. Season 4 was a bit a slopy, one episode good the other not so much.
Really hope you can do something better in next content, cause you have the means to do it.

The episode with the oil (burning) in my opinion contains an error. Even if we follow the short path (lay the river of oil through the fence), then there is not enough oil, or the skill stops working altogether. I am killed half an hour, until just to restart the game. Everything worked the first time.

You can only have like 8 or so oil drops at one time. The oil stops working because you've used the maxiumum amount of oil at one time. You need to spread out the oil further apart so you use less and cover a greater distance. The first two are a lot closer to the fire than the third one, thats why it sort of seems wonky, especially when theres zero explanation as to why you cant drop more oil. Hope this helps.

Firstly, I would like to say the story was excellent and moving, and IMO very well done.

The map is wonderfully explorey, with lots of interesting places and beautiful areas. Loved that underground dwarf tunnel to the mastery point, it was quite fun to find the way along it without its being a frustrating puzzle. The heart vendors seemed to have so little of interest that it doesn't seem like the hearts will be re-done much, except by people who want to finish the dailies. (Note: edited out comment on Priory heart, because I clearly had not understood how it was done.)

The movement mechanics on the oil slicks during the oil field adventure were very amusing, and I thought you ought to possibly make an ice-skating rink or adventure somewhere. =D

I flew my griffon to the top of those falls (in the southeast, I think?) and perched on a branded crystal sticking out of the cliff and looked down at the water...no diving goggles? It feels like there ought to be.

I actually thought the length of the story was about right, but there could be a little more explanation of certain fights, as they can prove annoying rather than fun - for example in the first fight it is difficult to see where to stand in the circle.

So far I like the new map and it is nice to go back to more vanilla style environments, deserts maps are not my favourite.

Ok honest open feedback. I wanted a few days after completing the story to collect my thoughts.

To be honest when I play a game I log in to escape the tragedies of the real world. I want a feel good experience not a depressing ending.

It seems like the writers are very limited (whether due to management restrictions or other) due to the fact that the only way they seem to be able to deliver a story is through killing off characters. This is the type of writing and writers I avoid when I read.

I will say it raises question from me personally as to whether or not I will continue doing the Living Story.i

The maps are beautiful, as always I could and never would complain about the graphics kudos to the art and development teams.

The episode with the oil (burning) in my opinion contains an error. Even if we follow the short path (lay the river of oil through the fence), then there is not enough oil, or the skill stops working altogether. I am killed half an hour, until just to restart the game. Everything worked the first time.

You can only have like 8 or so oil drops at one time. The oil stops working because you've used the maxiumum amount of oil at one time. You need to spread out the oil further apart so you use less and cover a greater distance. The first two are a lot closer to the fire than the third one, thats why it sort of seems wonky, especially when theres zero explanation as to why you cant drop more oil. Hope this helps.

Been playing the content in "All or Nothing" for a few days now, and I'm pretty amazed at the release, for a lot of good reasons, but a few not-so-good ones.

Things I really like:

The final story chapter. Just. Wow. Part of me resents it a little, because it seriously made me cry, and I do prefer the feelgoods that a game gives me, escape from RL and all that, but ultimately I can't stay grumbling for long because that chapter was SO well done. It's left me dying to know what happens next, and I've been pondering possible pathways we could take from here for days. The Zephyrite choir, those beautiful forced camera angles as we watched Aurene fight, having all our allies that we've slowly built up over many chapters come together - just love it.

I really love having the central story NPCs involved in the metas and dynamic events, e.g., Rox, Braham, Boticca, Logan.

The map design is SO good. I've been soaring over those waterfalls by Maiden's Veil POI on griffon and the HEIGHT of these mountains is just breathtaking. It really feels like we're in the Shiverpeaks, and it's nice seeing how much the artists have grown in their abilities since core Shiverpeak maps.

Hunting for the dwarven chests and using the new mastery to do the little jumping/mount puzzles was fun.

Loving the Zephyrite singers and how music and tone was integrated into this episode as a theme.

Things I am mixed about:

The dwarven catacombs puzzle around The Hammer's Hoard POI. I seriously loved the plate puzzle in the Derelict Delve dwarven area in Desert Highlands in PoF, so I was hoping for something like that but more involved here. Which you did give us, but I really have a love/hate thing going on with it. The rooms are fantastic, I love how each has their own puzzle/thing to solve to work through them, but the way the plates work is very, very awkward. It seems like it's random what plates you can get, and you're limited in some way how many you can get. I HATE that there's only a 30 minute timer on the Light of Deldrimor skill, and there seems to be an awkward 24 hour timer on restarting the puzzle with Frodak, so you can never tell when you're able to go back to him and go again. Why can't this reset AT daily reset? Why do we only have 30 minutes to use the Light of Deldrimor skill? I want to be able to take my time in the rooms and really enjoy them. And the past two days, I haven't been able to get the right plate sequence to get into the final room. Which leads into...

I really, really don't like:

How unbelievably difficult it is to obtain serpentite jewels. General consensus from map chat seems to be that the only guaranteed jewels are the chest in The Hammer's Hoard. There's supposedly a chance to obtain them from oil meta, keep meta, and regular dwarven chests. I've gotten ZERO jewels so far. I understand if you're trying to make this a more difficult set to aquire - I went through the slog of making a full ascended minstrels set for my guardian. But this just seems ridiculous and way out of scale. I wish you'd reconsider drop rates from the RNG sources, or make them tradeable. Please? I want the new diviner's set so bad, but this issue makes me want to quit playing this map entirely at times.

The oil meta seems to have some serious scaling issues. When we reach the phases where we need to split and defend the separate pumps, while the escort continues on, we had 2+ champions plus loads of veterans/regular mobs spawning on us at the pumps when we only had 3 people there defending. The escort only had 4-5 more and were well away at that point, so I have no idea why we had so many mobs.

The map is done well. I like that we are all together. Especially with our heroes participating in events. (If you are going to kill all of them too we have now a place where they will be forever). Nice idea to make one of them a heart npc. Feeling myself like at home around there. It's a pity that not all of heroes are with us. Funny skritts ofc.
Good that now we can consume volatile magic not only with a griffon (I still haven't it).
This map has levels that is nice to explore and walking around. And the whole Grotto is amazing inside.
I like Bell Choir Ensemble activity during Wintersday very much and The Master of Music teaches us to play a bit is good idea too.
New Crystal Champion PoF mastery let us have a connection with Aurene that is great too. Especially now.
Nice dwarven chests and ways to obtain them. Meta events and LS tasks there are interesting.
Music is beautiful and cinematics are well done.

Those are some thoughts about a new map and its features. You have done a great job. But it doesn't matter now. Nothing matters now. All that we ever did.

After the end of the LS I don't wanna say anything. I don't wanna play. I can't be glad and feel joy while I'm there. I just lost the sence. I lost connection. I liked Aurene so much. We were as one. You gave us a hope and you through it away. You ruined us. You just killed her to bring that "new experience" that heroes can die, that they who we love can die, that there is may be not a happy end. Couldn't you do it in another way? Did you think that making fights more easier will make our pain less because we were supposed to make not so much efforts? And I hope you have done that desicion not to lure an attention but because there was no other way to bring a peace inTyria. But you can't replace Aurene with someone else. Never. We grieved so many times. I don't wanna do it again. ANYMORE.

Some thoughts on Jan, 11

If Aurene's death was a beginning for her Ascention so that makes sence and I can accept it. There is always one way for such rituals and it's a sacrificing ourself to save someone's life because of truly love. The same thing that Dumbledore made with Harry Potter to kill Lord Voldemort.

After all the hype on twitter and from people who played it, I expected more. The graphics were breathtaking, both in the map in the in the actual story. Kralkatorik looked amazing, even if it resembled a kaiju a bit too closely for my taste. Otherwise... it wasn't surprising. Honestly, for me this was one of the story parts that engaged me the least from Season 5. The training with Aurene was lackluster and confusing if anything.

The actual battle was momumental, but to me felt neither especially hard or overly emotional. I don't know... the final image was really strong. It reminded me of "Morning Star (Lucifer)" or a Michelangelo sculpture/painting. Visually, it was very appealing, looked great on screen.

I mean... she'll be back. For a second when we were crippling along, I got excited thinking that maybe Aurene would die and give her power to us, making us a god, kind of, but it didn't happen. Same as we won't get to replace Balthazar as the good of war. This is a game story, not a book, I know that I can't expect huge twists or controversial content, but even so for me this story episode - apart from the visual - didn't feel special.

First off, map and environment this episode were extremely good and I see myself going to TP just for the neat environment. Only problems I saw were way too few events on the map and that one POI everyone else is complaining about that requires the two metas. Also some of the achievements on the map are annoying (ten solider crystal one in particular).

Story was meh at first and then picked up during the last instance. First instance was confusing because I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing the first two trials because too vague instructions were given (still have no idea what the first trial was supposed to be). It just felt like boring filler content. Maybe it's just me getting tired of Glint's Trials at this point after doing so many in the story already. Final instance was very well designed and I really got that combat feel and the strong emotions at the ending (Also seeing the familiar ghost in the last instance gave me good feels ). Really liked the ending cinematic and the lack of direction that we're at at this point since the story is so unpredictable rn.

Technical: My Thief is running far too slowly as compared to other parts of the game. Thief, mind you.
Tale:
When I had first begun my travels here years ago, I had pored over the map, and wondered whether we will get to see all the areas that are still names, or simply misted over. I had wished to see Cantha, and Deldrimor.
It was my reason for buying the GW1 series. Also, to see 'Glorious Orr!' as my guildie puts it, intact.
Now, we finally get to see Deldrimor!
Beautiful, marred by the Crystal Dragon, but beautiful.

The story?
Well done, minus a few unnecessarily light conversation in the third quarter, but..

All the rush and heartbreak for so long..
I stopped for a second, and my body shook out a sob, then another, till tears broke.

For the first time, I have felt like I want to stop playing. Give up. Go away.
Stop playing story.
That much audience immersion get your writers off?

Yes, it was that well written but it felt like all we have done over the last five years has come to nothing.
Losing our mentors of the Pact was bad enough, losing the Marshal was even worse, but losing the flagbearer of the revolution is like killing off Katniss in book 3 of The Hunger Games, and even that isn't pretty.
And Aurene is LOVEABLE. She is ..ours. If this is some ill-begotten Game of Thrones pre-release hype, then deflate it, please.

It was like a rough stone machete that snapped the final cord that ties me to Tyria and her fate.
Now, I am more than ready to lose myself in the grit and salt of The Mists.

"Yup, Living World is dead, WvW, here I come!"
At least, there, the adventure continues, and the only thing taking away our heroes is life.

That precious egg, shining.
Every nation who died in the pursuit of its preservation.
Glint's Legacy
Kormir will sprout her eyes back and Balthazar hug Jormag to a fiery death if they knew.

Give me back my baby.
Give us back our Aurene.

Tyria has died the day she died.
I pity Kralkatorrik, no less.
The terrified fool..

Give us back the child!
We need her!
Whatever nihilism your writers follow in their own mind is not my concern.
I come here to get away from our own breaking world.
Leave some beauty intact, here in Tyria, at least!Please
You have no right to take away the little one.
Bring her back, whatever way or form you please!
No, not as you please. As she were, in her full kindness and purity.
Darling, my baby. OUR baby. Everyone's hero! How could you?
In a way, I am relieved.
Now I can go play all those other games without guilt, or wondering what will happen to or in Tyria.

May the Jade Sea break,
May the skies rip,
May the legions who died in your name rise,
May the hours of my tired eyes and distorted wrist reach your unmakers,
May your (mis)writers' hands' bones weep with pain,
Their joints swell, and may they limp
As they made me
And our thousands,
Walk away from you,
Your gift of hope,
Your world.
You.

I have cried again, now, and it rattled my ribcage.

Well done, ye craven eaters and drinkers of others' misery. May your five senses fail you before you witness your greatest creation.

In Chinese and Korean historical dramas, it is shown how there is such a thing as a 'complaint drum' guarded outside the seat of authority of any given city or town.
If this thread was it, I'd have beaten it open.
The guards would have dragged me away, and I would have been beaten bloody by the authorities, eyes still burning as I look them all right back in theirs.
You may have done what you will, but there will be a way.
There always is a way.

@Lite Ning Strike.5203 said:
Ok honest open feedback. I wanted a few days after completing the story to collect my thoughts.

To be honest when I play a game I log in to escape the tragedies of the real world. I want a feel good experience not a depressing ending.

It seems like the writers are very limited (whether due to management restrictions or other) due to the fact that the only way they seem to be able to deliver a story is through killing off characters. This is the type of writing and writers I avoid when I read.

I will say it raises question from me personally as to whether or not I will continue doing the Living Story.i

The maps are beautiful, as always I could and never would complain about the graphics kudos to the art and development teams.

Thanks!!

Guild Wars, the original Guild Wars that is prelude to GW2 had a far darker story than GW2. Now I am very much sick of the 'jolly happy' tone of the GW2's story and I have finally come to appreciate the tone of the story that finally turned darker and deeper.
Nothing caught my attention up until the end of this episode and I am beyond grateful to the team for making such a dark twist in the story.
Game needs more of such storytelling and deeper things happening.
If the story moved us, it means it is good. This definitely moved me and I realized that a tragedy needs to happen to make you appreciate the characters and story more.

Honestly look at WoW and the characters and setting there. Look at the Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit, all the good films. All of these films have a lot of suffering, twists, darkness, tragedies, death...but in the end the good always prevails, despite the hopelessness of the situation and despite the strength of evil.
This is what I have come to realize with GW2 episode. Kralkatorrik needs a good beating and we HAVE to kill him for the sake of Aurene! It motivated me even more to fight him and want him dead.

My feedback for all or nothing
I feel stupid at the end of story. I believe there are many ways this can end but how it was ended, I could say it's a short cut and it was not fun. I was not feeling emotion sad or anything.. not like the past few seasons and episodes that I feel involved and emotion over it.. but this.. when it ends .. I just felt no emotion. The elimination of a main character for the return of peace.. that's a good short cut but not the satisfaction provide to players.. I'm sorry .. I didn't like it at all.
Map, cinematic wise I give it a plus 8/10. It's beautiful breath taking. Artist definitely are skilled. Story wise 2/10 .. it can be better guys.

@yohoia.1850 said:
I am glad I read about the ending of the story before starting the episode. Now I can avoid getting depressed and heartbroken by skipping the story and wait until episode 6 to do 5 and 6 together (or skip 5 altogether) - when and if there is less tragic and more heroic (positive/hopeful) ending; where we kill the big bad dragon, save the world, the Commander triumphs, Aurene is restored (somehow) and we can move on to new adventures - such as CANTHA (couldn't resist).

I love the map and the setting and the new items/sigils etc. I really wanted to get out of the desert and snowy regions are my favourite. So, apart from the story arc and its ending, I love the episode

that until the next main character snuff it, Anet should make a votation poo thread and title it "what main character you want us to kill next? vote here". Seriously your order mentor, Belinda, Eir, Trehearne, Blish, Aurene. Zojja hasnt apeared since she was released from her pod wayyyyy back on HoT so she might be dead for all we know, gosh even SNAFF appeared and the one to recieve him was Tai- omg i just remembered that Taimi its supposed to be terminal... there is another main character on death´s door right there﻿, i just answered my own question

For me, after killing Aurene, they could kill all other characters. I don't want her back, and I am going to stay away from the game not sure how long due to this lack of writing. I love Game Of Thrones, their story has some meaning. Guild Wars 2, they are now doing some non sense killing. I understand Eir dying even Trehearne, but this death of Aurene it had no sense. They could have killed us all, Braham, Rox, Caithe, the commander. In the stories we are called commander but actually, we are everyone's employee. We do everything that any other character tell us to do. we (commanders) are pawns and slaves in this game. Even the actors have sweet and delicate voices, that can't even act as commanders. We could be just some mercenary hired by taimi, the one who gives most orders.
They also could have written something else besides always make us kill dragons. So they could avoid going always in the same "shocking" ending that doesn't add anything to the story, just make us tired of it.

You sure it was me commenting it? Maybe it was an illusion all along, bruh...

In terms of the story, I have no complaints for now. However that may change if the followup falls flat.

The new map is great. I am not a huge fan of how the archaeology heart works (if you are coming from the south you can't start until you go and get a gun). I also don't really like the dredge heart (clearing crystals gives too little, so you end up doing nothing but fishing, and no this is not what people had in mind). Neither of these is a killer. The map is gorgeous, and getting to some places is challenging, but generally not impossible (although there are some places where you can get stuck because you need to bunny back up to a platform, but you can't OOC due to the range/sightlines). There are a few places on the map where you MUST be able to mount, but there are too many enemies around so things get annoying/unnecessarily lethal. The Metas are OK, but kinda bland. One has you playing technician and the other has you capturing a fort only for a second. The gating of the tomb activity with these is not nice, given you can only get the item to open the tombs once a day AND you made the tombs part of map completion.

On that topic, this is the most egregious thing about the map: The Consul's Tomb POI. You get in with RNG (unless doing the story). This could mean you have to run the same character through the meta multiple times on multiple days trying to roll entrance to the POI. I am not happy about the Horde POI, but at least that one is guaranteed if you complete the pair of Meta events, which is a little better but still a problem. Map completion should NOT be gated behind events, but REALLY should not be gated around events that depend on player population. What happens in the future when the map population drops and the meta-event completion rate drops significantly?

I'm quite disapointed with this living world season....
We know killing elder dragons is a long term bad thing to do. The main character and his/her mates decided to stop the dragons with something else than just killing it. (hello Spencer) Braham was told MANY times to not attack Jormag... as he was able to crack Jormag's tooth, the NORNEST thing to do for a norn and the call for arms for those brave warriors. And he gently came back one year later, agree with the fact that killing dragons is not a solution. We have studied ley line and dragon's energies... and here... the only thing that came for solution is... "KILL IT!!!" .... no! just no!
If it's for more ley line anomalies that drops those shiny mystic coins, why not... but are we really trying to destroy the world balance? To me, Kralkatorik feels more obvious than the player character. We were able to destroy two elder dragons and one god... it made great disturbances in the world's ley lines energy and we keep on destroying what channeling it and prevent it from explode everything... we are dangerous... more than elder dragons... ARE WE EVIL???

The episode with the oil (burning) in my opinion contains an error. Even if we follow the short path (lay the river of oil through the fence), then there is not enough oil, or the skill stops working altogether. I am killed half an hour, until just to restart the game. Everything worked the first time.

You can only have like 8 or so oil drops at one time. The oil stops working because you've used the maxiumum amount of oil at one time. You need to spread out the oil further apart so you use less and cover a greater distance. The first two are a lot closer to the fire than the third one, thats why it sort of seems wonky, especially when theres zero explanation as to why you cant drop more oil. Hope this helps.

I love the ending of the episode from a story telling perspective. Honestly, this was the best ending you could have done. In my opinion it would have been a big mistake to let the Commander kill Kralk because he's just too powerful to be killed in such a fight. It would have been too easy. So I love the actual ending. I also love how the fight played out. Here I want to pass a big compliment to whoever was responsible for the music in the last instance and on the map in general. It was gorgeous! And I'm glad that the pose of Aurene after her death was the exact same pose as the one we saw in her visions. To me it said: Commander, you saw the visions. You knew she's going to die no matter what. And you still came to fight Kralkatorrik. Now all that I can wish for is that we don't get a "Aurene came back to life" kind of draconis-ex-machina moment in the next episode. What's dead should stay dead. When she could just come back to life this whole chapter would have been a total waste of everyone's time. But I'm curious what Glint showed Aurene after the trials and what she meant by saying that there are some parts tied to ascension only dragons could understand. We'll see. But long story short: Thank you for this chapter and for this great ending!

Only kralk is a danger not his minions. I don't see why we still want to kill dragons, just listen to joko argh! We just need to get kralk asleep. About the minions, not a threat, use Inquest technologies: Test bed Zeleph in Arah + Communication array in sandswept = An army of branded under your orders. (Maybe Inquest leader is stupid xD they still haven't figured that! Imagine, branding-proof golem + Riftstalkers fighting along them!)

+++Number ONE fan of I.N.Q.U.E.S.T, don't worry, I'm chaotic-neutral. I like baddies in general. +++

LIke the story, map is decent (nasty parts, but overal nice), but I loathe (and that's putting it mildly) the first part of the story. I cannot see where I am supposed to stand, I can only see the lines dividing the circle. Add to that those random foes, and the random AoE things and the constant knockbacks, it makes it a horrible experience, completely ruining the rest.

@Lite Ning Strike.5203 said:
Ok honest open feedback. I wanted a few days after completing the story to collect my thoughts.

To be honest when I play a game I log in to escape the tragedies of the real world. I want a feel good experience not a depressing ending.

It seems like the writers are very limited (whether due to management restrictions or other) due to the fact that the only way they seem to be able to deliver a story is through killing off characters. This is the type of writing and writers I avoid when I read.

I will say it raises question from me personally as to whether or not I will continue doing the Living Story.i

The maps are beautiful, as always I could and never would complain about the graphics kudos to the art and development teams.

The game performance has been always kinda bad during the metas, but this time especially so. I got like 30 fps on the lowest settings.

Other than that i enjoy this map and the story. Having everything be tight and focused felt like a nice contrast to the earlier episodes. Also having the spear weapons felt like a nice addition, and it changed how I normally played the game.

I kinda miss the jumping puzzles and hope to see those return someday.

Straight up kitten amazing! You guys need to do more of the epic scale underground parts and more verticality this way. Tangled Depths was nice with the multiple layers style but it was really irritating to get around. This one just nailed it. It was refreshing to see the ceiling but still have enough space to fly around on gryphon. The whole map flow is absolutely stellar, from the highs connected with massive bridges to the lows with the various structures, no place feels the same or out of place. The story instances are getting shorter and shorter by each episode but they get way more epic and tight, upping the ante with every iteration.Loved how people speculated about how you guys should kill Taimi to make actual drama and you were like NOPE, we got a way worse idea! Love it. With the humiliating painful walk Modern Warfare style I was speechless!
But to give actual criticism:
The camera movement when I lost control at the final fight was pretty messed up. If I was moving with my character or camera before it took control, it pointed to really bad places, hiding the actual happenings. The final fight also had some invisible walls around the branded crystals making it a bit punishing if you wanted to go through it with mount. On map there is a bug where the Skritt shouts randomly, no matter where you're at.

In conclusion, cant wait to experience the next episode after such a letdown and loss of hope!

May the bridges I burn light the way
So that all who follow may know
This path has been taken
And it is mine alone

@Aleaxita.2041 said:
I don't have the energy to write more than just a couple comments:

Cinematics and sound are stunning. Mechanics are fun, aside from the charging crystals, since mob AI made it hard to get them to stay to be charged.

I appreciate the QoL updates.

The map's pretty (glad to see a Shiverpeaks map again), but it gives me Lake Doric vibes in playthrough (not a fan of that map, sadly).

Killing off beloved characters is not good writing. I shouldn't expect any better, given the track record, but this is ridiculous. I'm so tired of the writing team relying on character death for shock value. It's not going to do much, but if I could even have one word with the writing team, please stop.

I completely and wholeheartedly agree. I had to log off after the end of All or Nothing because I was too upset. That's not why I play GW2. It's difficult enough dealing with this sort of thing (loss, grief, pain) in real life, and I am deeply disappointed in the writer's decision to kill off a beloved character, especially after building us up for so long. I still mourn Tybalt, for gods' sakes. I've given some thought to quitting GW2, which would be a shame. I've played since launch and have put hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars of real money into the Gem store. I have put countless hours into the game over the years and I've never before felt like quitting altogether until now. My son and his friends who also play say they feel the same way. Arenanet, I hope you fix this because I think you're going to lose a lot of players who feel just like me.

Not killing off any charater at all is not good writing either. The killing of Aurene is not about killing someone who is loved, it's about losing all hope since she was the key to kill Krallkatorrik AND prevent the destruction of the world by doing it.

I'd really love it if the last story instance hadn't ended the way it did, by mercilessly dropping me back into the new map, where all the prep and morale lifting for the coming battle were still going. It felt like the Commander had suddenly become a time traveler, returning to the moment before, and seeing all these people who did not know what was coming for them. It was unreal. I kept hoping I'd be able to run into someone from Dragon's Watch and talk to them about it. I even went to Sun's Refuge. They didn't know there either what had happened. So I /cry'd amidst the nest Taimi made for Aurene. It made me feel a little bit better. I have fast loading times between maps. Usually that's great. Now it just gutted me, and not in the good 'ugh this is so sad, it hurts, what an emotional rollercoaster' way, but in the bad 'I'm left here without guts. Now what?' way. The worst part is having to wait until next season, living in a time before the final fight, knowing what is coming for all the NPCs I encounter, before the Commander can grieve with her friends. It really would have been better, and left me with more apprehension for the next episode, if the feeling of grief and despair had lasted a little longer and was allowed to come to a softer landing. Dropping into Sun's Refuge after the fight, for example, with Dragon's Watch etc. and then wallow in the utter hopelessness of the situation for a few minutes of dialogue would definitely have been better.